Jesse Bullington - The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

“Yeah, I mean after that, though,” Hegel grunted.

“Well it was either demon or angel, so Heaven or Hell.”

“But which?”

“You’s the damn saint.” Manfried felt the block shift slightly. “Ask Mary.”

“It’s there!” said Hegel.

It actually took them the rest of the night to wedge it open enough to slip through. Before they entered they called Hassan down from his sentry position on top of the dune to have a drink. While the three laughed and rubbed their hands in anticipation light crept up the side of their dune, and the Grossbarts ate the last of the camel they had stolen from a Bedouin several days before. The beast had struck Hegel as even more suspect than a horse.

“What you reckon’s inside?” asked Hegel.

“Witch’s gold,” Manfried belched. “If we’s lucky, regular gold if we ain’t.”

“Why’d I want some gold touched by a witch?” Hegel demanded.

“Cause then we’d never be able to spend it all.”

“But if a witch grubbed it up-”

“Then you bless it pure, thickhead, I swear, you’s…” Manfried trailed off, his eyes trained on the beams of sunlight brushing the top of the arch.

“I’s what, bath-mouth?” Hegel asked. “Answer up, son, and lose your holy station.”

“Shut it.” Manfried dropped his meat and slowly stood, brushing the weathered stone. “Brother,” his voice shaking along with his shoulders, “what you make a this?”

Hegel set down his wine but before he could reprimand Manfried he saw it too, and slumped back in the sand. “What the shit?”

“It’s it, ain’t it?!” Manfried turned away from the rough G chiseled in the stone, the symbol clearly fresher than the worn bas-reliefs. “That’s our goddamn mark!”

“Yeah.” Hegel felt sick. “Damn if it ain’t.”

“What in Hell!?” Manfried kicked the sand and threw his prybar down. “Lousy old fucker! All the goddamn tombs in Gyptland!”

Hassan stood and gestured to the engraving, shrugging his shoulders. Manfried sucker punched him and when the man fell he booted him again. For several minutes Manfried raged and swore and Hegel drank.

“Our grandad,” Hegel explained to the contorted guide. “Truth finally be laid bare, I’d kind a doubted he ever made it.”

“Pack it up,” Manfried said. “Let’s get movin to the next one.”

“Hold a tic.” Hegel held up his hand.

“Why? Why the fuck-”

“Cause I said so!” Hegel jumped up. “You know that feelin I get when somethin don’t wash, or we’s liable to get some ill our way?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I ain’t got it.” Hegel scratched his beard. “Anythin, I feel, I dunno, good bout this here crypt.”

“Eh?”

“Yeah!” Hegel picked up the prybar and offered it to his brother. “I mean, he might a carved it fore he went in, and dropped dead at the sight a all the loot. Or he couldn’t carry it all, meant to come back for it but didn’t want our cunty da slip-pin in fore he could get back.”

“Suppose the possibility exists.” Manfried stroked the end of his beard to remind his brother that with half of Hegel’s in a monster’s gullet, there could be no denying the superiority of Manfried’s silver bush.

“Can’t hurt nuthin.” Hegel stood up. “Get with it, Arab.”

Hefting their gear, Hegel lit an oil lamp taken from the same unfortunate traveler whose camel they had killed and squirmed inside. Manfried followed with Hassan close behind, only his fear of the saint preventing him from knifing Manfried in the back. Stone stairs led down into midnight, and with each step Hegel felt more confident. Then the stair underfoot gave a soft click as he put his weight on it, and even without the goosepimples exploding on his neck he would have known to run for it. A thunderous crashing echoed after them, and reaching an opening Hegel ducked around the corner followed by Manfried. As they looked back for Hassan an explosion of dust and rock shards exited the stairwell, snuffing out their lamp.

“Feel good bout it?!” Manfried punched at his brother but in the black vault he only hurt his hand on the wall. “Mecky fuckin asshole!”

“Stow it,” said Hegel, “I’s relightin the lamp so’s we can find a way out.”

When Hegel finally got it lit they saw the entire stairway was choked with fallen blocks from the ceiling. They stood in a massive stone chamber far exceeding any sepulcher they had previously pilfered. Amidst grumblings they agreed there must be another stairway or exit somewhere in the vault. They were wrong.

There lived Grossbarts before Hegel and Manfried, and, unfortunately for this happy world, there have lived Grossbarts since. A complete chronicle of that benighted clan would fill more volumes than every holy text of every people of every land, and so rejoice that there is little more recorded here. The Brothers Grossbart received exactly what they deserved down in that hallowed desert tomb, and it is easy to assume they lived only as long as their water and air held out. Thus, their end may have been more merciful to humanity than the tragedy that was their birth.

Before their eradication, preachers of the Grossbart Heresy alleged that Saint Hegel gave his own life a second time to save his brother, but the tales of madmen and heretics are just that. Far, far to the east, however, there lies a chain of islands with curious beliefs. The people of that land have long held that eating the flesh of a sea maiden grants immortality; perhaps, then, the Brothers Grossbart still dwell in that lightless tomb long buried in sand, tugging their beards for all time.

Only through scholarship is the writer capable of realistically rendering the historical world. Some of the books below were consulted prior to beginning this work in order to inspire and inform, others were read after its completion to check specific details. Most were extremely useful, and all offered something, even if their tokens wound up excised with cruel snips of the drafting process. This lamentably brief-to some, doubtlessly overlong to others-bibliography reflects of course only the specific books consulted immediately before, during, or after the drafting of the novel; many more titles I can no longer recall laid the groundwork for my understanding of the era and its beliefs.

As for the study of the Grossbarts in particular, I am strongly indebted to several esteemed specialists in the history of that ignoble line: Señor Ardanuy, Heer Dunn, Monsieur Rahimi, and Kyria Tanzer. In addition to their help with this adaptation, their previous works on the subject have been a great boon and are cited accordingly. Finally, while their works are not to be found below, the tutelage of many a non-Grossbartian historian and teacher helped me immeasurably-Steve Armstrong, Bruce Boehrer, Margaret Burkley, Roy Campbell, Ken Foster, Doug Fowler, Don Howarth, Marlow Matherne, Rod Moorer, Paul Reifenheiser, Mike Rychlik, Bawa Singh, Paul Strait, and Trisha Stapleton, to name but a few.

Allen, S.J. and Amt, Emile. The Crusades: A Reader . Canada: Broadview Press, 2003.

Ardanuy, David. Saint Hegel: The Self-Idolatry of the Righteous in Medieval Europe . Florida: Goat Head Walking, 1989.

Arikha, Noga. Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours. New York: Ecco, 2007.

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale . New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

Barber, Richard (ed.). Bestiary: Being an English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764 with all the Original Miniatures Produced in Facsimile. Translated and Introduced by Richard Barber. Great Britain: The Boydell Press, 1993.

Benton, Janetta Rebold. The Medieval Menagerie: Animals in the Art of the Middle Ages. New York: Abbeville Press, 1992.